Today we wish a happy birthday to former Grand Prix driver Jean-Christopher ‘Jules’ Boullion, who is turning 42 today!

Winner of the 1990 Formula Ford 1600 championship in his native France, he was soon turning heads in Formula 3 with his stylish and quick driving. But he was inconsistent, and two years in the championship netted him a best placing of fourth overall, in 1992.

Nevertheless, he graduated to Formula 3000, and earned two second-placed finishes with the Apotomax team. He switched to the DAMS team in 1994, and mounted a late-season charge for the title, snatching it at the final round after winning the last three races.

His reward was a testing contract with Williams and was quickly impressive as the team’s understudy. He grabbed at the chance to join the Sauber team’s racing line-up when the team decided to dispense with the services of Karl Wendlinger.

Given his inexperience, he did well to claim two points’ finishes, but on the flipside, he also blotted his copybook with countless spins and was rarely on the pace of team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

With no race seat in the offing, he returned to his test driver role with Williams – later switching to Tyrrell – but he would never grace the F1 grid again.

In the late 1990s, Boullion started to make a name for himself in the field of sports cars, where he has been a regular competitor in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where he achieved a pair of podium finishes for Pescarolo in 2005 and 2007.